Schroeder Calls for End to Iraq Sanctions

Published 8:00 pm, Thursday, May 15, 2003

AP Diplomatic Writer

As Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to mend frayed relations with Germany, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed Friday that sanctions against Iraq "make no sense."

With Powell signaling the Bush administration was in a compromising mood on the text of a U.N. resolution, Schroeder said the burden of the economic squeeze on the Iraqi people should be removed as soon as possible.

And Powell, at a joint news conference after a half-hour meeting at Schroeder's office, said: "I was pleased with the chancellor's commitment to lift the sanctions entirely."

They took no questions, however, and both described their talks as candid, implying some disagreements. So it was not immediately clear whether Germany no longer supported only a suspension of the sanctions.

The United States is planning to make its move at the U.N. Security Council next week. Powell said Thursday he was looking for a 15-0 vote.

Relations between Germany and the United States took a nosedive over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Germany opposed. President Bush had already cooled to Schroeder and they have not met since last November when they attended a summit in Prague, the Czech Republic, to pave the way for the expansion of the NATO military alliance.

"We talked about the disagreement of the past," but also about "what pulls us together," Powell said on a warm spring day in the German capital.

U.S. officials and a member of Schroeder's Social Democratic Party doubted there would be a full reconciliation quickly.

"The personal relationship is not just damaged, it is broken, and I fear beyond repair," Hans-Ulrich Klose, who heads the foreign affairs committee in the German parliament, wrote in the Welt am Sonntag weekly. "That is regrettable because personal trust in the negotiating parties is important for political cooperation."

Powell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Berlin since the relationship went into a downward spiral when Schroeder campaigned for re-election by vigorously opposing Bush's threats to go to war with Iraq.

The German public was firmly against the war, and Germany lined up with France and Russia to push for extended U.N. weapons search. However, unlike the two other countries, Germany did not actively work to undercut the U.S. effort to round up votes in the Council.

Powell's meetings with Schroeder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer were focused on U.S.-led efforts to win Security Council approval for lifting U.N. sanctions on Iraq _ with Washington seeking assurances that Berlin will maintain the positive attitude it has shown so far. The leaders also are expected to deal with the war on terrorism and the shaky trans-Atlantic relationship.

Powell, meanwhile, raised the possibility Thursday of suspending the sanctions, but quickly backtracked and said the United States wants them lifted immediately and without conditions.

Powell's comments came shortly before U.S. officials handed a revised draft of a U.N. resolution on postwar Iraq to Security Council experts Thursday afternoon. It calls for an end to "all prohibitions related to trade with Iraq and the provision of financial or economic resources to Iraq."

In a clear message to the government, Powell also planned to meet with opposition leader Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats, who received VIP treatment in Washington earlier this year after she openly criticized Schroeder for damaging ties with the United States.